COLIN BLUNSTONE is possibly the best singer around. There are reasons. There have to be.
You know, not singer/songwriter, not singer/juggler/wah - wah guitar specialist. Not one of those people who sing songs while dressing up as ladies, but just a pure, unadulterated, old-fashioned singer.
That's not meant to throw any old hats on Blunstone. There are precious few cobwebs about his person (those that hang are the cobwebs spun by honesty, and modesty). And it's kind of pleasant to keep those things.
With "Say You Don't Mind" nestling in the charts, and with America reaching out to him with greedy fingers, it looks as though the Blunstone formula is going to break. In fact, maybe it already has.
The Zombies were never as fashionable as they are now. Blunstone — the band's former lead singer — is the first to admit that, and the first to be aware (as is Rod Argent) of the dishonesty situations like that can produce. "I know it's fashionable for people to say they dug The Zombies, but fashions can be dreadful things," he says.
At this moment of time, Blunstone The Solo Singer is touring America — not singing, but talking. It's a promo trip, which in most cases can be more tedious, more demanding, more draining than any one night stand.
Before he left he visited the Top of the Pops studious, where they put him on a stool, and surrounded him with some fairly pretty girls. In fact at one stage of the proceedings they sat the wrong person on the stool. because they didn't know what Colin Blunstone looked like. Despite that, everyone, just everyone, shook his hand with that "old friends" handshake. But he didn't know any of them.
Blunstone's voice might be described as unusual. but when you think about it, it's The Others that are unusual. Blunstone is almost a choir-boy — pumped full of soul. His voice is more than just an instrument, it's the song.
We're sat in the drab little vaults that The Beeb supply as dressing rooms. Blunstone admired the half-empty bottle of scotch. "It always amazes me that people will buy one record, and not another. What I mean to say is they've bought 'Say You Don't Mind,' and they didn't buy the last single. I thought 'Caroline Goodbye' was exceptionally good. People are strange, and I fail to understand their taste."
"One Year," the Blunstone album that met the more pleasing side of the critics some months back, became somewhat surprisingly a sleeper. When that happens you can see straight away that there are more liars than buyers. Blunstone knows that. The album slept, and people talked of Colin Blunstone. Then they packed in talking, and listened, and "Say You Don't Mind" sold.
"I don't mind the fact that I'm singing a song written by Denny Laine. If people like what I do, then I'm proud to be associated with whatever it is I lay down — no matter who it's written by. I like to be associated with things. if you can see what I mean."
Would Colin agree that the actual "art" of pure singing, especially with a decidedly English coating, had become a forgotten field?
"Well yes, but not just singing, for melody has tended to take a backseat too. Okay, I know some really pleasant music has been written recently. I've seen bands that I've really enjoyed. But I've come out of the concert, and d--- it, I can't remember a single melody they played. I personally prefer to hear a tune, and words, and voice, for a voice can capture certain things that instruments cannot.
"I have no master plan. I've said before that I'm not prepared to go on the road again, unless it's comfortable. I'm never going to sit in the back of Transits, eating out of paper bags. No, never again. But I needed to do all that. And I'm thankful I have done.
"You see, I'm in the dreadful position of having "made it" in a week. It's true. Just one week ago nobody was phoning me, and nothing was happening. Now everything is. I've got to keep a careful eye open. If I don't, I could make many mistakes."
They did two takes of "Say You Don't Mind" live in the studio. Colin didn't drop a note. No, it's certainly not an unusual voice. It's clean, it's music, and again, possibly the best voice in the world.
There's a whole choir of them upstairs, mind.
ROY HOLLINGWORTH
